TRANSCRIPT:
THRASAN: Could use a stiff drink. Uh - maybe not you.
DRACONIAN: What?
THRASAN: I , uh … I hear you people don’t drink?
DRACONIAN: Where d’ye get sich buggersense?
THRASAN: What? What did you say?
DRACONIAN: Kin ye clean yer earholes? I said it’s buggersense! We don’ drink? Ha!
THRASAN: So - you do drink.
DRACONIAN: `Course!
THRASAN: Well. So - look, don’t get mad, it’s just what people say -
DRACONIAN: Well?
THRASAN: Well, maybe that bit about how your priests actually drink blood …
DRACONIAN: Buggersense.
THRASAN: Oh, well … sorry.
DRACONIAN: It’s wine, dey just wave de’ hands and bless it. Becomes “Blood O’ De Dragon,” but y’know, it’s like …
THRASAN: Ceremonial.
DRACONIAN: Like dat, yeh.
THRASAN: Mm. Guess that would make more sense, then.
GUDIK: I’m not surrendering! I’ll have you know I was winning! It’s just that this changes everything - for all of us.
12 thoughts on “Misconceptions – Page 1096”
Ms. Kitty
LOL! Maybe at the bottom of a graduated cylinder?
RBZ
Hooray for a blow against ethnic stereotyping!
Because skewed preconceptions lead to culture shock when faced with reality.
Ooorah
I like these guys. Much more interesting characters than whichever blowhards are arguing inside that tent.
Jean
Agreed! Sometimes the absolute best stories are told organically, in the little ways, and the little details. Like in a sidebar conversation between two people of very different cultures, they know they have to get along, they’re glad to not be fighitng, they don’t really know each other…and boy oh boy are they glad they’re not having t obe the idiots making all the big decisions in the tent behind them…but they’re still doing their part out there, outside the tent. The fellow in blue and black is trying to find common ground with the fellow in green and gold, and drink IS one of the most common methods of bonding via the friendliness of hospitality…and alcohol-aided relaxation…
I recently read a great blog post on tumblr about how fanfiction is an almost unique genre, an organic genre, in that regard. It’s not always about the big earthshaking plots and always rushing to save the day, but often is actually about the smaller moments, where the characters hash out their differences through talk more often than fisticuffs, where they bond in quiet conversations that don’t necessarily “move the plot forward” but DO have an impact on how they relate to each other both in that moment, and later on when circumstances start happening. Fanfiction, and in corollary, long-form graphic fiction stories like this webcomic (and I mean really long form, lol), has the ability to tell these incidental stories that make the characters richer, the world fuller, and everything just…better. IF you like that format, and IF you can get away with it.
That’s the rub, though. When you’re working on a novel with a publisher (I’ve done that 26 times, btw, so I’m a bit of an expert by now, I’d think), you have a “set word count” that you have to stay close to. Publishers just won’t accept or publish books that are outside reasonable bounds. So if you have a book where they request is for 100,000 words, and you write 90k or 120k, you’re okay. If you write 35k they will demand over twice as much, or they’re going to rewrite the contract to pay for a novella, which is like a couple hundred bucks versus a couple thousand in advance money, so it’s not as good. But if you write 200k+…they’re going to demand you either crop a lot of it, or if they like the story as-is, AND there’s a place you can cut it in two (I’ve had to do that one), they’ll rewrite the contract to make it a two book series…IF they like it, and you.
Or if you write a story that cannot be easily cropped, they won’t print it because the book will be too big, the costs too high, and most people won’t buy a big fat thick paperback from a little-known author. On top of that, publishers of genre fiction expect a plot-driven story. if you write a story that’s supposed to be action/adventure and you instead write a story with a smidge of that, but mostly it’s two (or however many) characters developing a deep friendship while they’re traveling, and not so much the fighting, more fireside chats whenever they camp than fiery dragon fights…they’re not going to want to publish it. Buddy road trip stories work somewhat in the movies, but–according to the publishing world–not so much when it comes to print (graphic or text). Oh, and if you write a 200k+ story that just doesn’t have a good place to break it up…you’re screwed. (Been there, done that, too…)
The problem is…the publishers are wrong about everything but the price of a really big thick book that’s more about the character interactions than the plot-driving. Very wrong, in a way. That’s most of what fanfics do, noodle around in what makes the characters themselves, or in fleshing out secondary characters, giving them better personalities and adventures of their own, without having to constantly involve the original protagonists…and they give us those organic moments, the daily life glimpses in between the dragon slayings. And there are a LOT of readers who LOVE a 200,000 word story about a camping trip where they never actually get around to slaying the dragon, but instead spend most of their time talking about life, ladies, lords, the way how chain mail hauberks rip out those little hairs on the back of your neck if you don’t have your head covering just right under the coif…and they talk about misinterpretive rumors circulating about all those ceremonial wine-blessings while the Big Important Characters argue about the plot points in the background.
Because it’s not just fanfiction. Fanfiction is just one expression of what is really going on here, the genre of organic fiction. Which can indeed be blended in with hack-and-slash, spell-and-sword, dimension-hopping fantasy. And it WORKS in a very long serialized format like a webcomic, or a fanfiction that’s been produced as an archived set of chapters that go on and on, or as an ebook that no traditional publisher would touch.
It works, because we *identify* with those two guys, awkward situation, stuck having to play nice, tired of fighting, and trying to find common ground. Stumbling over misconceptions, and apologizing for them, and getting clarifications. And then, hopefully, bonding. At least a little.
Or as Gandalf the Grey once put it, in The Hobbit:
“Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.”
With all that said…I hope you find someone to hoist a pint with (milk in my case, lol), a good topic to peacefully clear up misundertandings, and a chance to bond in friendship rather than keep apart in hate. Cheers, mates!
Lora
Well said, Jean!
I love a good plot, but when I write I tend to focus on the characters and their development. And fanfiction is the perfect place to do just that. 🙂 Nothing more fun than exploring their past, background characters, or just all those things that were hinted at, but never really fleshed out.
I’ve found that a longer story (500 pages plus) doesn’t really work for me unless it’s got good, well-written characters and character development as well as a good plot with good pacing. It all have to come together for those long stories to really work. Some authors are great at the 300-400 pages range, but not so great at 500 + pages, others excel at the really long stories.
Reading all of this I do feel like writing; maybe after a nap. 😉
jd.
Words to live and write by, lady sis.
I was going to say that I didn’t remember Saruman being even mentioned in “The Hobbit”, but a bit of beforehand research (though you can’t do that while guarding a tent of squabbling sovereigns, it’s another great way not to antagonize people) seems to indicate it might have been from the films (of which I only have seen part of the first). Is that it?
Last and maybe most important, hoisting my own mug of verbena tea to you.
EmmaC
Ahahahahah I love this. Those two, they could bring the peace around a good cup of wine… or strong liquor. I’m sure!
hans
Eh, yeah.
That blood/wine part about my religion always was highly weird to me. Satanic almost.
Oh well, at least nobody bit of an important part of my peepee.
Catholicism is trash now anyway, liked it much better back when we were taking back the holy lands.
jd.
I like that when the Thrasan shows attempts to appease the Draconian, the latter quickly mellows out. There’s hope for the lads yet — if their silly leaders can go past their respective prides. Or maybe if Tethik manages to find a way around them…
I mean, I my view of him may be overpowered but I see him as being as capable in statesmanship as Tula is in, well, pretty much anything that relies mostly on intellectual prowess. Do we have sources on his abilities? I don’t quite remember seeing him in action, but maybe a testimony somewhere (like Brother Laemul about Tula here: https://barbarianprincess.com/comic/hollywood-ending/page-579/ )?
By the way, I also like that Gudik tries to hang on to what’s important even as he is reaffirming his ego.
Jack
I think I have a new word!
EmmaC
“buggersense” XD
the_eldest
As we can see here “Common Sense” must derive from “Commoner” as they have the sense to talk things out quietly and quickly, without any to harsh words or even fighting. Aristocrats and royals seem to have a bit of a harder time getting that, execptions proving the rule, obviously.
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